First Contact
by mmmmmaple
Summary: An accompanying fic to An Awkward Courtship. Denmark meets Canada for the first time. (Rated S for Sorta Sad.)


_(I promise I will have the next chapter of An Awkward Courtship up soon. This is an accompanying fic. Backstory. Whatever you wanna call it. Horrid title, please forgive me.)_

* * *

**First Contact**

* * *

The three nations pay little heed to the outright hostility of the mysterious humans; the land is bountiful, and any trouble they may have is well worth the price. The real conflict lies is the peaceable meals, the willing camaraderie.

It Mathias who stands the most to lose. Thankfully for him, he is quick to realize that it is a game.

Mathias tries to behave every bit as normally as possible, but catches himself occasionally frowning into the depths of hard rock and windblown trees. Naturally, he does not consider breathing a word of the voice that calls to him at night. He has his suspicions that the other two hear it as well; Lukas is missing in the mornings and Berwald disappears shortly after nightfall. Mathias can see it in their eyes, the flinty look of determination.

He detests the deception, but thrives on the challenge.

(Once, when they had hardly more than stepped foot on the smooth grey rock, Mathias had thought he saw the representative of this sweet land. Confrontation had been horrible, and had quickly proven him wrong. It had taken no small might to keep Berwald and Lukas from sending him back home by himself right then.)

Mathias will pry apart the very earth with his own hands, bare and bleeding, if that is what it takes.

This time, he will be sure.

* * *

"Idiot," Lukas grumbles bitterly into the night. Running a hand through his hair absently, he stares off the edge of the cliff into the darkness of crashing waves. "Do our own men not understand what we are here to do?"

"No," Mathias says after a moment, smiling into the darkness.

Lukas raises a hand to his mouth and gives Mathias a glare in blame for not having shown deference to the smouldering pyre.

Mathias whirls around his heel and faces them head on, a hand on his hip. Thorvald Eiriksson's actions had been reckless, attacking the humans who could have been carved from the earth, itself; however, the very act that had gotten him killed had finally provoked bloodshed. And, as Mathias looks from the clench of Lukas' jaw to the knit of Berwald's brow, he knows that they, too, are thinking that this event ought to be enough to inspire Vinland's temper.

He shifts his axe in his hand and pops his shoulders, slyly limbering up for another night's worth of determined searching. Matthias has grown tired of the game. This night will be the night.

A deep rumble echoes from the depths of the forest. Lukas and Berwald tense. Mathias laughs, loud and mocking. His blood is afire, but he will be cursed before he lets the other two see the effect that the unearthly noise has had on him.

_So, you can summon monsters?_

A wicked grin curves on his lips as he runs his thumb across the broad haft of his axe.

"Fool," he laughs. Raising his voice into the wind, Mathias makes the land a promise. "I will bring you to your knees. Ready yourself. Weep. I will slay your monsters, Vinland."

_You're mine._

* * *

_"Let us end this."_

Mathias touches his chest and moans in his sleep.

He knows it is a dream - this is not the first time he has yelled for them to turn the longboat _hard - now! _ He has extended his arm through the thick soup of fog before this, and traced his calloused fingers across a wall of ice. Regardless, he shifts the furs around his shoulders and stares straight ahead. When he spots the land, he lets out a joyous cry.

It is at once rugged, cold, and wild, but the ground possesses a tenderness that feels like coming home. Unearthly seal chatter is their greeting and the sensation of new land underfoot is the quickest cure for sea legs.

Running a hand through his hair, the impossibly vertical mess hardened into place by salty air, Mathias closes his eyes to let the shoreline inscribe itself in the map of his mind. "Mine," he whispers.

_"Come to me."_

"You!" he bolts upright, hissing at the chill of the air on his skin.

_"I'm waiting for you."_

Mathias rips off his blanket, his breaths coming quick at the distinctly new sound of something trampling away.

Vinland is close.

His grin is as wide as it is feral, and Mathias does not bother himself with propriety. He hardly pauses to pull on his cloth trousers before instinct pulls at his stomach and twists. Grabbing his axe in one hand, he slips out of his little stone house and easily adjusts to the brightness of the clear sky and ripe moon.

Mathias flies through the night, tilted at the waist, to chase the creature that has not given him a full night's sleep in three years.

Rounding the corner of a small grove of trees, Mathias slides to a dead stop, and it is purely his dexterity that prevents him from sliding over the edge and into the frothy sea. He shifts his axe in hand, alert.

The child's skin is opalescent. A length of fair hair is tied into a thick and unruly braid that is nearly half the width of the its body. Serene in the moonlight, it is neither wary nor afraid.

Mathias ought to dispatch this little ghost; he has no time for creatures that plague the land that will soon be his own. He cannot bring himself to attack the boy, though, and when he turns his head, Mathias exhales sharply. "Lost, kid?"

"No." His voice is barely audible, and his rosy cheeks speak louder than his words. Mathias smiles almost fondly, a warmth tingling in his chest, as the boy turns his back to him and huffs a spring of hair out of his face. It takes far too long for him to realize that the child has responded to him in a language he can understand, his own. "Are you lost?"

"Are you Vinland?" Mathias asks readily.

"So you say."

There is a pause.

"I am not lost."

"You are not wanted," Vinland says quietly. "I am the heart of these lands. You know this. You must leave."

Mathias shrugs off the knowledge that he is stretched a little too thin on this land that is so far from home. "Oh, child," he says, grinning to belie the heaviness of his words. "I will not leave."

"But you have to," Vinland responds as if it is a fact, and Mathias would be a fool if he did not feel the strength in the simple words.

He ignores it.

"You will come with me," he pauses to raise an eyebrow pointedly. "I am certain you know the way."

From what he can see of the creamy face, Vinland frowns. "Yes, I heard your promise. Be ready for crying and killing."

Vinland hides his distress well, and Mathias ghosts closer to the boy. The tension in his tiny fists is enough to show that he would like to do little more than spit in Mathias' face. He finds the boy's resolve nothing short of endearing. "I am giving you the chance to come peacefully."

"One of mine is too many to lose to someone like you, and you took more than that. You are a liar. There is no peace!" Vinland does little more than cross his arms over his chest and continue to stare at the expanse of ocean, but there is a sudden drop in temperature. Waves break hard against the rocks below.

"There can be." He is close enough to grab Vinland by the scruff of his plain nightdress, but the boy does not seem perturbed, and Mathias wonders exactly how it is that someone so very young and so very alone has come to be so wise.

"_I_ am giving you the chance." The words are bitter echo of Mathias' own, and leave him grinning at the promise that brims from this little nation. "Leave, or I will make you regret it."

Mathias does not respond with words; rather, leans into his weight, glares, and swings to demonstrate the extent of his sincerity. His axe strikes the ground with jarring force. Vinland has disappeared. Eyes narrowed, Mathias drops into a crouch and scans the area. When there is no evidence that the boy was ever there at all, he peers over the cliff, just to be sure that the little blonde didn't jump off.

"Vinland! Show yourself."

"Will not!"

Mathias bites his lip with such force that it splits; Vinland's squeak is as charming as it is frustrating. His heart pounds at his chest and his eyes widen as he realizes that there is more than one way to proceed with getting what he wants.

"Hey," Mathias calls, voice warm. "Show yourself."

A quiet cough pinpoints the boy to his immediate right, but Mathias allows the child to maintain his charade by not looking directly at him. A moment of silence passes before the little nation rematerializes, bearing doe eyes, prepared to bolt at any moment.

"You won't hurt me?" he whispers, vacantly looking past Mathias' hip.

"No," Mathias murmurs with a smile as he stares down at the part in Vinland's soft hair. "No. I can make this easy for both of us."

"Good. Anyway, can't hurt me. I am protected."

Mathias' smile grows; protection is strength, and strength is good. "Nice trick, disappearing."

"Not a trick!" Vinland pouts and makes a sweeping gesture at the forest. "And not that. I have a friend."

_Norge and Svierge will be so jealous._

"Kumeejeri!"

A loud rumble emanates from behind a tree. Much to Mathias' disbelief, a bear lopes out, giant paws remarkably soft on the ground. He tenses, but Vinland's lack of fear is enough to make him relax his grip on his axe, if just a little.

The bear is brilliant and snowy. Vinland approaches it without fear, and the creature stops and gives him a look of confusion. It grumbles something that sounds like a question, and the boy smiles and whispers something back.

Mathias entertains the notion that perhaps he has underestimated Vinland.

"Is this your friend?" he asks, shooting the unimpressed polar bear a sparkling smile.

"Kumaturo," Vinland beams and clasps his hands around the animal's leg, buries his head in its fur.

"I thought you said -" Mathias stops short. The bear's name is of no significance. He changes tact and drops into a crouch once again to better look at the little nation. "You're a big land, aren't you?"

Vinland touches his face with one hand and lodges the other firmly in his bear's fur. "I am just me," he says quietly. The bear speaks and Mathias can't help but glare for a second, for that is the same voice that has woken him every night. Vinland wrinkles his face in concentration as he translates the words. "You have question, Kumanoro knows."

Mathias quirks a brow at the impassive, dark-eyed creature. He nods. "Do you know what family is?"

"Kumajura!" he responds immediately, smiling shyly, and Mathias is hard-pressed not to reach out and pinch his cheeks. He buries his face in white fur, heedless of the bear's halfhearted grumbling.

As for the creature, it stares at Mathias with an unnerving stillness as if memorizing him for faults. It mutters something into the little nation's ear, and Vinland gasps.

"Is that really what you want?" he whispers to the wind.

Flushing, Mathias adjusts his axe to lie across his shoulders.

"Kumasuro thinks… maybe you still have to ask something. But I won't answer unless you put down your weapon."

"There are two of you," he chirps as offhandedly as he can.

"I'm just a little boy," Vinland counters.

_Just a little boy with a giant bear and humans who would have us strung up to painfully die over the course of days. Just a little boy whose land is so vast that he can't even keep his eyes on me for more than a second. But a little boy, nonetheless._

"Your bear is right."

"_You_ can call me First Bear," it mutters irritably and Mathias cocks his head. The bear mimics him and offers a haughty snuffle. "I speak your language, but it is stupid and tastes bad in my mouth."

Mathias has to grip his knees until his knuckles turn white with pressure and leave yellow marks on his skin to keep from grabbing the beast and snapping its neck. He takes a deep breath and wills his blood to keep from boiling as he looks at Vinland's soft, apologetic smile.

"Be my little brother," he says bluntly.

Vinland pivots slowly to face the sea. Mathias squints past the little boy's long lashes and watches his peculiar eyes as they roam the night sky, the ocean, the smooth blue of the cliff rocks. The sweet face is disarming, and Mathias considers that this is the wisest course of action; he is, after all, surprisingly adept at winning entire nations over. Violence is not the answer, not with this child.

The silence remains relatively undisturbed as several events transpire in rapid succession.

Vinland turns around, idly twisting the hem of his nightshirt.

Mathias' breath catches in his throat and his eyes widen as he realizes the cause of the little nation's wandering gaze.

Something catches Vinland off-guard and he stumbles.

Mathias acts instinctively, throwing his axe to the ground and lunging to grab the boy. He has no time to question his own actions, for Vinland goes slack in his grip. The bear whines, and Mathias gasps as the little body begins to shake against his chest.

Vinland pulls away, mouth parted and stuck in a silent scream. His streaming eyes are fixed Mathias' face, until, if it possible, they grow wider. He breaks the gaze by slowly lifting his shaking hands in front of his face.

With a laboured exhale, Mathias opens his mouth to say anything to alleviate the sudden suffering, but he can offer no comfort.

"No," Vinland whispers at last.

Mathias runs his hands up his arms, long-since prickled with gooseflesh, and stares. "How did you not know you were blind?"

"C-can't feel ocean," he stammers, choking on his own sobs.

"Hey, kid…"

"Look!" Vinland shrieks, ferocious and dangerous in a way that would be frightening if he were older. He thrusts his palms to Mathias, who frowns. The polar bear whimpers, but Vinland is too volatile, too shocked to move. "I must be sick. So pale."

Mathias grasps his meaning in one gut-twisting moment and calculates the remaining time in which he can make a safe retreat. And, for the first time in his life, Mathias does not consider it weak to leave; not when the very ground threatens to shake and when he is so far from the strength of home.

"You did this," Vinland says evenly, still trembling, hands still outstretched, but gazing past them and into Mathias' eyes. "Am I dead?"

_He's just a little boy._

"You're not dead," Mathias reassures, if only to relieve the feeling of uselessness.

"You will never be my big brother. None of you. Leave. When the waters are clear, _leave_."

"Vinland -"

"Don't call me that!" he wails, the air crackling, glazed eyes heartrendingly dark. It is a testament to his self-control that he does not do more than scream, for Mathias can see the strength in the tiny fists that scrunch in his nightdress. Mathias leans down, gaze fixed on the golden-haired boy as he reaches for his axe.

"Leave me alone," Vinland whispers before going slack and flopping onto the hard ground. "Please, just go away."

(Mathias obliges, for he can do little more than fabricate a story to tell the others. He informs them, later, of the being that had proven to be too much, even for him, for all of them together - riding a wild bear and more barbaric than anything they have ever seen. It has offered them one chance to leave, he proclaims, and they take it as soon as it is safe to leave.)


End file.
